The scientist’s laboratory placement makes even aberrations appear naturally intelligible.

Evidence

Not only is Saint-Hilaire saying that it is the specific character of contemporary study (he was writing in 1822) to examine phenomena comparatively; he is also saying that for the scientist there is no such thing as a phenomenon, no matter how aberrant and exceptional, that cannot be explained with reference to other phenomena. Note also how Saint-Hilaire employs the metaphor of centrality (le centre de sa sphère d’activité) used later by Renan in L’Avenir de la science to describe the position occupied by any object in nature—including even the philologist—once the object is scientifically placed there by the examining scientist. Thereafter between the object and the scientist a bond of sympathy is established. … The point being made is that a scientist has at his disposal a sort of leverage by which even the totally unusual occurrence can be seen naturally and known scientifically, which in this case means without recourse to the supernatural, and with recourse only to an enveloping environment constituted by the scientist. As a result nature itself can be reperceived as continuous, harmoniously coherent, and fundamentally intelligible. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 374

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: The ‘bond of sympathy’ established by scientific placement connects to the broader Orientalist claim about the scholar-authority relation, and to the constructed coherence of the object of study.